The Unspoken Promise
by Althaea11
Summary: Maura and Jane. How Maura met Jane and how everything changed. A journey. I initially wrote it as a one shot penning the first few moments of how Maura met Jane from Maura's point of view. I am working on expanding it now, the summary will change as the ideas take shape.
1. Chapter 1 The First Time We Met

I was not even sure that this moment would ever come to pass and certainly not in this way. Of all the things that i couldn't foresee, this was perhaps on the top of my list. But it happened and in the blink of an eye I knew what it was going to mean for me.

I have always been a private person. Not because I have a different set of priorities, but because really, I never met anyone who would really understand me; how I felt; what I admired. The sole connection I ever made with the society I live in was through my appearance. It sounds vain if you don't know me, but this is the only thing that lets me ease in to what terrifies me the most. The other way around, trying to let people in, has always been so much harder. Over time, I have eventually learned to decipher outward appearances as a step to look into what lay within. That a person's eyes hold the window to their soul always sounded so cliché to me, but it was all I had in my arsenal. But when I laid my eyes on her, when I saw her, it was different; this was different. I felt something changing around me; the perceptions that held on to me suddenly redefined themselves in a fraction of a second. She was different. She had a pull I couldn't deny, something that pulled me right in. The moment soon was overpowered by a strange sense of belonging, but I had to resist. I could not have opened up to her in that instant, because that would have driven her away. The ever surmounting fear that if I talked to her, she would eventually drive away just like the others and fade before I even got the chance to know her was there, it was. But this was a risk I had to take. I had to talk to her for the sake of my sanity and sanguinity. There was a pull in those eyes I could not deny, a heart dedicated and determined, sincere and genuine. To know her would be one of those lasting experiences that stitch you back together if you ever fall.

She was desperate and in dismay, bubbling in frustration perhaps when I saw her first. She didn't know I was looking at her until I decided to help her because all I wanted to see in that moment was one smile on her face. When her eyes first rested on mine, she scanned me as if looking for smoke. In the fraction of moment that came next, those eyes melted fleetingly, as if wanting to open to let me in. As if they knew who I was, what I might have gone through all my life, what my heart always wanted and without a shred of judgment letting me know that I could have good in my life again. No matter how miniscule that window was, it was enough for me to keep putting my efforts into sync because this was rare. I was used to being judged, used to being called names that were just a prettier way to mock me, but this, this sincerity was not something I found this often. In fact something about it that it wasn't what I had come across ever. How can I even feel all this in one fragment of moment was beyond my rational mind, but it was all there and I couldn't wait to know her more.

But before I could let myself sail in, a disarray of emotions took over and she put her walls back up and I was left stranded on the shore having just a momentarily relief of escape. I felt the dejection set in my heart, but I shoved it away to the corner because, looking at her was more important, knowing that this fraction of moment could still exist was important. She went all up and lodged herself into a conversation that took me aback because that was not where my mind went. She could see the turmoil on my face, but I decided to let it go and when she left, I felt a sense of being torn apart from something that wasn't even mine. I knew I couldn't leave all this like that. I had to meet her again. I had to see those eyes again. Of all the hopes that lit up in my heart in that one moment when I laid eyes upon her, this tiny little possibility bubbling in my heart that she might mean the most to me in the days to come was overwhelming and all consuming.


	2. Chapter 2 The Voice

_It was dark. The room was illuminating faintly with a source of light I could not locate at first glance. I squinted my eyes impatiently to hasten the time they were taking to adjust to the darkness that filled the place where I was trapped. Yes, I felt entrapped. I wasn't bound in chains but I still couldn't move. I could feel something hovering all around me, a numbness that was paramount and insignificant at the same time and it was confining me in its wake. And I was afraid and terrified. I could sense the dread and trepidation in the erratic beating of my heart, every time I decided to stand and move forward but I had no idea why. As the scene adjusted, I could see brick stone walls on one side and my old room suddenly started to take shape. I could see my bed, the table that stood alongside and my books; the entire cabinet full of shelves of my only companion all through my childhood. I could never comprehend the confusion, the pity and the more often seen derision that flashed through the innumerable countenances of people I ever told that I had books for companion. Did they not believe me? Or did they believed me and thought of me as an outcast and a loner? The thought of both the answers made me scoff now and I hear my own shallow laugh echoing in this room. I think now I know that their views don't matter. I can feel the fear ebb away into the darkness behind me and something else takes its place; indifference and acceptance perhaps. I feel myself able to move again. But I still don't stand up from the dark corner I am sitting in. I choose to stay there. But then moments into the decision, I hear this gentle yet strong pull of a voice echoing from outside the door of my room. I have heard it before. I remember that voice so well. It dawns on me that this is one of those voices I had promised myself never to forget. But I find it hard to associate a face with it. Why? I cannot figure it out and in desperation I try to listen to it more carefully. It echoes again. This time the voice is stronger and I nearly feel catching onto it, as if it is just an inch away from the grasp of my memory but I fail. The voice grows stronger but it remains calm and soothing. The feeling of being entrapped somehow diminishes now and I feel being pulled towards something overwhelmingly bright and warm. The pull is not dragging me down but it seems to pull me up in an unseen welcoming embrace. I let it. My room fades and I see myself in a cold office, someplace I have never been before but it feels familiar more than my old bedroom; and the voice stays, stronger than before._

"_I am here Maura. I am waiting for you to give you what you are looking for."_

_I find words flowing out my mouth instinctively. "Who are you? Where are you? Why can't I see you?"_

_A smile fills my senses even though I cannot see it and I find myself trusting that voice now. "What is it that I am looking for?" I can feel a name just on the verge of the words I am saying out loud but I cannot take hold of it. It seems to stay at an unbearably insignificant distance from my conscious and I keep trying to decipher it and failing until the voice echoes back._

"_Home..."_

My eyes flew open. It wasn't fear or panic that broke that dream, (_was it a dream?)_ it was the overwhelming sincerity in that voice that rushed through me like a jolt; the voice was still lucid in my ears and I instantly looked around my room trying to find the source of that voice. I found no one. It felt so real and familiar. I just couldn't place it. I tried to make sense of whatever it was that had just played in my mind seconds before but I could already feel all those emotions in my subconscious floating away; only the voice remained as if it was embracing everything in me and holding me in place. But soon, it began to loosen its hold and faint slowly away from me. However, it didn't feel as if I was going to lose it. It felt as if it was something that I would hear again, feel again, and have again. It felt like as if it will come back to me. And I wanted it to. It soothed my nerves. I held on to it as a tether as long as I could, as if I could feel the darkness rushing back and crushing me under its weight and it felt as the only real thing I could hold onto; as if that voice had become my savior. I laid back and as I closed my eyes again and fell into a deep slumber, something inside me made sure I still held onto my grasp of that now almost faded voice as if in the depth of my subconscious, I had already realized that this voice will deliver to me on the promise it had made.


End file.
